CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN THEATER FESTIVAL 2024|

How theater reflects society

by Grace Cavalieri, Maryland’s Poet Laureate

I’ve been attending Shepherd University’s annual play festival since 1991 when we sat on wooden benches with a large rotating fan. Due to Artistic Director/Founder Ed Herendeen’s mission over the years, to create and present new American theater, this valiant idea has grown into one of the best regional theaters in the country with 5 stages, innovative plays, top actors, and outstanding stage production. Artistic Director Peggy McKowen now upholds Herendeen’s charge.

Theater is an outcropping of the mind and the time. Yet it relies on antecedents and, this year, it was interesting to see what these plays of 2024 were saying to us.

Naturalism, best remembered for mid-19th century drama presented stories, realistically told, in a linear fashion. We see this continued today on stages throughout the world. Naturalism is not dead in 2024. Donja R. Love’s “What Will Happen To All That Beauty?” is a perfect representation (even to glasses filled with water run from a faucet.) It is, however, telling a different story about humankind—one which Strindberg could never have imagined. It is about the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s in America. The onset of the disease is Part One of playwright Love’s two connected plays. It’s a lockstep play where A is followed by B, perfectly naturalistic, and although some say, ‘why HIV now 40 years later?’ – I say why not? And one reason is because there are people in the audience who did not have friends, as I did, who developed skin rashes, coughs, went to the DC Whitman Clinic. And the information is invaluable. The play demonstrates, in actuality, the human frailty, the consequence of (then) forbidden desire, the tragedy, injustice and loss.

Some audience members question nudity on stage and sex simulation, but I believe the playwright could not make an abstract case for a visceral problem. And we remember Strindberg’s “Miss Julie” had one of the first sexual encounters in the canon. This was off stage, of course, 1888, remember.

A talented cast, well directed, is headed by Jude Tibeau (J.R. Bridges) and Toni L. Martin (Maxine Bridges.) Part two brings the story line forward 25 years; it was highly praised, and I cannot report personally, as my schedule didn’t allow play # two.

How is theater a reflection of our society? If one were to ask what ideas, through the years theater attempts—even from Greek times— we might answer morality, social class, and power, etc., external events causing psychological changes onstage.

Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting

But our playwrights are going even more inward now. In “Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting,” by playwright Harmon dot aut, a non-binary character (Chantal Bunuel) lives with autism and synesthesia. Art and video installations are from the playwright, an extraordinary artist, who self describes as “a non-binary, (dis)abled PneumaFractalist.” Jean Christian Barry plays Chantal. His dad is played by Roderick Hill; Mom played by Jasminn Johnson, all superbly acted and directed.

I’m not sure that every interior experience can be made manifest to others, but through strokes of technical inventions, this play—in multidimensional effects—gives the viewer the character’s experience. Its success can be measured only person by person, but no one can deny the ambition and originality. There’s also a play within a play, which doubles the ante; and the dialogue can only be seen as poetic, since we are experiencing two or more sensory reactions to reason’s usual single reactive response.

In both plays mentioned above, recording devices are so important to the themes, they could be characters. Yet with all the technical presentations, the throughlines in theater, from the first mask worn, depend on human relationships; and these plays do not falter in the tradition.

Enough To Let The Light In

Play # 3, by Paloma Nozicka, returns to the traditional norms with characters, situation and plot. In “Enough To Let The Light In,” two gay women, played by Caroline Neff and Deanna Myers are in love and wish to enter a lifetime together. There’s a secret unfolding in their house (a set marvelously realistically constructed) as we watch their playful and loving interactions. The secret revealed is that Cynthia (Caroline Neff) was previously married and lost a child at 3 years, who she believes lives in the walls of the house. The theme is loss

and grief. But is it psychosis? Is there a ghost in the wall? Or hopefully not— a child? It’s a suspenseful drama, well written, well spoken, and well directed; and once again, non-binary characters dominate the emotional landscape. This is significant because we can see, in all three of these plays, a culture in the throes of change, and, more importantly, the acceptance of change. Playwrights who are other-sexual finally have the space and place to express the world they live in and that legacy.

I was a playwright active in the 1960’s and ‘70’s; and women were just beginning to be allowed to say things in the bedroom that were not said in the living room, and we pushed hard against those boundaries. It’s fresh air today to see the liberation of thought and action.

The Happiest Man On Earth

The 4th play in repertory this year is “The Happiest Man On Earth,” a one-man show performed magnificently by Kenneth Tigar (playing Eddie Jaku) written by Mark St. Germain, from a memoir by Eddie Jaku. For 85 minutes this actor performs the life of a German Jew through the horrors of concentration camps, escapes, tortures, and the worst of human deprivations. And yet it is a joyous work because great art is buoyant and great acting is indelible.

Someone questioned: “Another story about the Holocaust?’ but after the show, there was the answer. Many of us were alive during that time in history, yet there are people in the audience who know only abstractions. This play is about detail, specificity, and humanity, and I praise CATF for its presentation.

CATF excels in production, lighting, and sound, and always has. The actors are excellent. There’s nothing to complain about, except, maybe society, itself, whose grief, cruelty and foibles impel us to project our raw humanness for all to see. And through these transformations, in making art, we are saved.

Through July 28 tickets 681-240-2283